Posts aboutInnovation

Microsoft’s interest in the open-source community reveals its importance; given the company’s strategic change is some years now towards the embracing of open-source software development. Accordingly, the acquisition of GitHub does not sound surprising, at least not as much as the $7.5bn paid for that acquisition. However, the acquisition of Microsoft is of pure strategic value; the extraordinary $7.5bn paid that equals 3000% of GitHub’s estimated annual turnover means that the financial value of the company itself is not the reason for making such an acquisition. Indeed, Microsoft paid that… Read more

The stark reality of the damaging nature of plastic packaging has become increasingly evident in recent years, which has placed pressure on the global community to take action. Supermarkets in particular are guilty of using layer upon layer of plastic to package perishable food items, which over time has caused irreversible damage to the environment. The introduction of Ekoplaza’s plastic-free aisle is a landmark moment in a fight against plastic pollution, showcasing to the world that the concept is possible, scalable and well received. The move to launch the world’s… Read more

The tablet market has undergone consecutive years of decline in recent years, and the market is expected to continue declining in the coming years as well. This has put intense pressure on players operating in this market, and many such as Dell and HTC have decided to pull out. Overall the market is dominated by Apple, Samsung and Amazon. Several reasons have been given to explain why the tablets market after such a promising start has succumbed to this pattern of decline. An important reason is the way in which… Read more

Daniel Wellington is a Swedish watch making company that has been placed at the top of the “Fastest Growing European Companies” list. Started by Filip Tysander in 2011 using his own money, the company has since witnessed impressive growth thanks to a very successful social media marketing strategy campaign. Rather than engaging in traditional marketing in a rather congested market where giants like Rolex and Tag Heuer exist, Daniel Wellington instead has sought to utilize the power of social media in order to boost its brand awareness. It has done… Read more

AeroFarms’ food growing method, called aeroponics, requires no dirt, no sun and needs about 95% less water than traditional farming. It also applies 40% less fertilizer, and no pesticides. The company uses rehabilitated buildings, such as warehouses or old industrial plants, instead of constructing sophisticated massive, modern facilities from scratch, which dramatically reduces the property costs. While about ten years ago, indoor farming was associated with high costs and visions of people in lab coats walking around plants in soil many stories up in the air, the reality today is… Read more

Teaching computers to learn on their own has been the core aim of AI research, with the world’s largest tech companies, including Facebook, Google and Baidu, all racing to develop the best techniques. Although there have been breakthroughs in speech and image recognition, the machines still struggle to handle basic physical tasks. Kindred AI, a Canadian start up, decided to tackle these issues applying a new, innovative approach based on the technique of immersive teleoperation. According to its founders, the best way to make robots as smart as humans, is… Read more

Elon Musk’s brand image has evolved strongly over the past two decades, and he is today one of the most recognizable and admired CEOs globally. Whilst some of the major companies he owns such as Tesla are still very small compared to their market competitors Musk’s popularity only seems to grow. This is primarily due to two major reasons. The first is that Musk’s companies are engaged in the manufacturing of products that do not only carry financial benefits to the owner, but also do the wider society some good, whether… Read more

The US meal-kit delivery service is projected to be a $5bn market over the next three years. Though space is already crowded, a start-up company, Blue Apron, managed to carve a niche out for itself. By recognizing the educational void for the multitude of home cooks and building a wildly successful business around feeding them, while sharpening their kitchen prowess, the company managed to build a $2bn recipe-delivery business with 2,500 employees, in 36 months. By designing its business model around supply chain efficiencies, the company managed to get fresher… Read more

Ginkgo Bioworks, a Boston-based DNA writer and designer company, launched in 2008, is already one of the largest DNA writers in the world. It is expected to make over $20m in revenue in 2017. Ginkgo’s success is based on an innovative technology that uses yeast as a base to make all kinds of substances, including perfumes, cosmetics and sweeteners, from microbugs. This technology can be used across a whole host of consumer and industrial products, enabling customers to grow rather than manufacture better products. The company is currently working on… Read more

The global pharmaceutical market was worth $946.1bn in 2016, growing with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.1% between 2012 and 2016. Healthy market growth and big margins in the traditional pharma industry are attracting a new generation of startup companies, who are using big data, sensors and artificial intelligence to revolutionize the way healthcare is delivered and they are not afraid to compete with the incumbent Big Pharma companies. Emerging digital technologies from the new generation start-ups are reshaping the traditional pharma landscape. By collecting enough data, directly… Read more

The envisioned reforms are wide-ranging and are easily the most ambitious set of labor market reforms to have made it this far intact. Previously, all efforts have floundered under the weight of popular protest. Although productivity remains healthy in the domestic economy, business growth has been stymied by bad regulation which deters job creation, especially for small businesses nearing the 50th employee threshold which makes the employer subject to an alarmingly complex and costly set of regulations. Bodies representing small and medium businesses are pleased with the outcome, hailing them… Read more

In recent years, two new genetic technologies have started a scientific and medical revolution. One is the ability to easily decode the information in our genes and it is relatively well known. It began with the development of tests for genetic diseases. They have proven they can be quite successful, leading to a reduction of human suffering. The other, not yet clearly understood by the general public, is the newfound capacity to modify genes at will. New editing tools to create genetically defined human cell lines have come to the… Read more

After a long period of rapid, double digit growth, the Chinese economy entered a more sustainable phase of development, based on innovation and consumption. Given the large population of 1.3 billion in China, the explosive growth of smartphone users, e-commerce, and online content consumption and creation led to a digital revolution in almost all industries and business sectors. While the Chinese Communist Party is trying to match its social control in the real world with the virtual world, which becomes more and more restrictive, the country’s internet is thriving and… Read more

Uber released financial data to Bloomberg on April 14, 2017, something it is in no way obliged to do. The image it presented was one of rapid growth and expansion, skyrocketing revenues and incredible levels of spending. One would hope to see this level of performance; private investment in the company has grown consistently since its launch in 2009 as UberCab, generating nearly $10bn from investment firms since then, and it has managed to spend more than $8bn investing in its own growth. Private investment growth will need to continue… Read more

The global make-up industry grew by a record 8.4% in 2016 and was the main growth driver for the cosmetics market worldwide. The range of make-up products is endless, and some product categories, in particular those highly popular with the generation of Millennials, (i.e. concealers, illuminating highlighters, lipsticks) are booming. These hyper-connected customers are young, have a strong purchasing power, new ideas about beauty, and are also very keen to spend money on beauty products. While clothing and department stores are increasingly closing their physical locations, not being able to… Read more

NEEEF is not the policy the Namibian economy requires at present. Businesses, however big or small, would be required to be at least 25% owned by people described as ‘disadvantaged persons’ and occupy half of board and management positions. The suggested legislation appears to be an effort towards what amounts to forced redistribution of wealth and has similarities with the land redistribution attempted in Zimbabwe. Ownership is not the only target: spending and investment would be subject to new controls too. Problems regarding implementation are legion. Given approximately 40% of… Read more

Google and Uber started off as friends with Google parent Alphabet investing $258m in Uber in 2013. They then became competitors, as Uber started experimenting with its fleet of self-driving cars in 2016. Finally, in 2017, both companies ended as adversaries in court, engaging in a bitter legal fight to control the future of transportation. The suit details the lengths Waymo goes to in order to protect its trade secrets, including purchasing LiDAR components from numerous vendors and completing assembly in-house to prevent any single vendor from knowing everything about… Read more

2016 has been a rollercoaster of a year with regards to political incidences. With the UK voting in favor of leaving the EU in June 2016 and then a follow up of the US voting for President-elect Donald Trump in November of the same year, this has led to a degree of uncertainty in the scientific field. With funding at the forefront of scientific research and the advancement of scientific breakthroughs, the future has been thrown into turmoil as the individuals working in both countries, the US and the UK,… Read more

Block Chain technology is seen as the key breakthrough which allowed the development of Bitcoin, the enormously successful cryptocurrency. The Block Chain stands as proof of all the transactions on the network and the block is the live part of a Block Chain which records all of the recent transactions. When completed the individual block goes into the Block Chain as permanent database or ledger. Each block is arranged properly in chronological order and connected to the block next to it. Looking at the banking system for instance, this would… Read more

H&M is a fashion retailer with over 4,000 stores in 61 markets worldwide. The adoption of the fast fashion business model has been key to the company’s huge expansion since 2000. Fast fashion has a four to six week turnaround, much quicker than traditional collections which were released two to four times per year. As a result, clothing is more on-trend but it also more throwaway. The production of clothing has a huge environmental impact, particularly in the case of cotton. Cotton uses a huge amount of fertilizers and pesticides… Read more

The line between the auto and tech industries is rapidly blurring, with the pursuit of autonomous driving and a shift from car ownership towards car sharing and ride sharing. China is widely viewed as the next frontier for growth and many market players are looking to establish a foothold in this country, which requires significant investment. To keep up with changing market trends, most major auto makers are investing in their own driverless-car technology, which is less costly if done in cooperation with high-tech companies, like Google or Apple. The… Read more

In June 2012, Oculus VR, LLC was founded. Based in California, US, it was formed as a virtual reality technology company, and launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund development of their proposed virtual reality headset device. The company announced that backers who pledged $300 or more would be “rewarded” with the first development release of the headset, which was shipped to them in March 2013 (although the original date was December 2012). The intended amount Oculus wanted to raise was $250,000, but ended up raising over $2.4 million. Thus began… Read more

The recent filing of a patent by French manufacturing group Zodiac Aerospace for an innovative high density seating solution for single aisle passenger aircraft has caused a stir in the industry. By configuring the seats into an offset facing pattern, the space between seats is claimed to increase by 15%, offering each passenger an additional 10cm of available leg room. While the introduction of the seating is likely to be some way off, such innovation is indicative of the how the industry as a whole is seeking to meet the… Read more